Introduction
This Arducam 12MP Synchronized Stereo Camera Bundle Kit is capable of running two 12MP IMX477 Camera Modules simultaneously through a single MIPI CSI-2 camera slot connection on Raspberry Pi. It consists of two 12MP High-Quality IMX477 camera modules and an Arducam stereo camera HAT. The stereo camera HAT is enabled by ArduChip to disguise the dual-camera connection as a single camera to be accepted by the single-board computers. You can use this bundle to build your stereo camera system for depth-related vision applications or upgrade your IMX219 stereo setup.
What is Camarray
Camarray is a series of embedded stereo cameras and multiple camera solutions from Arducam. Upgraded from Arducam Sync Stereo Camera HAT, the Camarry can disguise up to 4 synched camera modules as a single camera slot connection to embedded systems like the Raspberry Pi, Jetson nano, and Xavier NX. With Arducam Camarray, your camera connectivities are no longer limited to the camera connectors on the motherboard or the carrier board. Along with Arducam-provided camera drivers, more flexibility can be added to your multi-camera applications.
NOTE
1.The Camarray HAT does not support digital pan in half resolution combine and programmable pan speed control.
2.The Camarray HAT is not a crop and a half (halving the horizontal resolution of each camera and halving the field of view) but a compressed half (halving the horizontal resolution of each camera but leaving the field of view unchanged), so it does not need to support scan mode.
IMPORTANT NOTE ON THE IMX477 MIPI LANES
Our IMX477 camera module support 4-lane in hardware, but the 4-lane camera driver requires extra customization. Here is why:
１.Standard Raspberry Pi and Jetson Nano/Xavier NX can’t physically support a 4-lane connection (both of them only have 2-lane CSI connectors). Only the Raspberry Pi Compute Module and some 3rd party Jetson Carrier Boards come with 4-lane hardware support. Therefore, it’s not a general need.
２.Extra works, specifically camera drivers, are required for a 4-lane connection other than the 4-lane physical connector. And the drivers are limited by the performances of the platform itself. For example, 4-lane can’t unlock 4k video on Raspberry Pi because the VideoCore does not currently support it. Jetson Nano is also to some extent limited because of the encoding capabilities. You need to make sure you really need it.
Common Specs
Image sensor
| Sensor Model | IMX477 |
| Shutter Type | Rolling Shutter |
| Active Pixels | 4056×3040 |
| Resolution | 12.3MP*2 |
| Image Sensor Format | Type 1/2.3″ |
| Pixel Size | 1.55μm×1.55μm |
| Color Filter Array | 650nm |
Lens Assembly
| Lens Mount | CS Lens | M12 |
| Interchangeability | YES | YES |
| F/NO | 1.2 | 2.8 |
| Focus Type | Manual Focus | Manual Focus |
| Focusing Range | 20cm to infinity (when focused to infinity) | 5cm to infinity (when focused to infinity) |
| Focal Length | 6 mm | 3.9mm |
| Field of View(FoV) | 65° Horizontal | 75° Horizontal |
| IR Sensitivity | Visible light | Visible light |
Board
| Camera Board Size | 38×38 mm |
| HAT Size | 65×56 mm |
OV9281 Camera Board Mechanical Drawing
HAT Mechanical Drawing
| Pin No. | Pin Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3V3 | Power | 3.3V power supply |
| 2 | FSIN | Input | Frame Sync Input |
| 3 | STB | Output | LED Strobe Output |
| 4 | GND | Ground | Ground |
| 5 | 3V3 | Power | 3.3V power supply |
| 6 | SDA | I/O | SCCB serial interface data I/O |
| 7 | SCL | Input | SCCB serial interface clock input |
| 8 | GND | Ground | Ground |
Connector & Cable
| Connector Interface | MIPI CSI-2 15-pin 2-lane |
| Ribbon Cable Length | 150mm (22-pin), 80mm(22-pin), 73mm(15-22pin) |
| Pin # | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | GND | Ground |
| 2 | CAM_D0_N | MIPI Data Lane 0 Negative |
| 3 | CAM_D0_P | MIPI Data Lane 0 Positive |
| 4 | GND | Ground |
| 5 | CAM_D1_N | MIPI Data Lane 1 Negative |
| 6 | CAM_D1_P | MIPI Data Lane 1 Positive |
| 7 | GND | Ground |
| 8 | CAM_CK_N | MIPI Clock Lane Negative |
| 9 | CAM_CK_P | MIPI Clock Lane Positive |
| 10 | GND | Ground |
| 11 | CAM_D2_N | MIPI Data Lane 2 Negative |
| 12 | CAM_D2_P | MIPI Data Lane 2 Positive |
| 13 | GND | Ground |
| 14 | CAM_D3_N | MIPI Data Lane 3 Negative |
| 15 | CAM_D3_P | MIPI Data Lane 3 Positive |
| 16 | GND | Ground |
| 17 | CAM_IO0 | Power Enable |
| 18 | CAM_IO1 | LED Indicator |
| 19 | GND | Ground |
| 20 | SCL | I2C SCL |
| 21 | SDA | SCCB serial Interface data IO |
| 22 | VCC | 3.3V Power Supply |
Driver Performance
| Video Format | GERY(8-bit)/Y10P(10-bit) |
| Output Interface | 2-lane MIPI serial output |
| Output Formats | 8/10-bit RAW |
| Frame Rates | [email protected]×1522(with official Raspberry Pi driver), [email protected]*2×3040(with Audcam MIPI Camera driver) |
Quick Start Guide
Hardware Setup
Check the Driver
There are 3 drivers for Raspberry Pi:
- Official driver
- Arducam MIPI camera driver
- Arducam V4L2 driver
The MIPI camera driver does not conflict with the official driver. The V4L2 driver conflicts with the official driver. Arducam 12MP Synchronized Stereo Camera uses the official driver or MIPI camera driver. If you want to use the official commands like raspistill and raspivid, you need to check if the V4L2 driver is installed first, if so, uninstall it.
1.Type the following command:
sudo nano /boot/config.txt
2.Press【PageDown】several times or scroll your mouse wheel down to check if there is “dtoverlay=arducam”.
1)If you see “dtoverlay=arducam”, modify it as “#dtoverlay=arducam” to uninstall the V4L2 driver. Press 【Ctrl+X】, 【Y】,【Enter】to save the change and exit. Finally, type the following command to reboot.
sudo reboot
2)If you don’t see “dtoverlay=arducam”, it means you haven’t installed the V4L2 driver. Please follow the below steps to continue.
3)If you see “#dtoverlay=arducam”, it means that Arducam’s V4L2 driver has been installed before, but it is uninstalled. Please follow the below steps to continue.
Check the Camera
1.Go to the main menu and open the Raspberry Pi Configuration tool.
2.Select the Interfaces tab and ensure that the camera is enabled:
3.Reboot your Pi
4.Check whether the camera is detected
vcgencmd get_camera
- detected=1 means the camera is detected. (The camera is OV5647, IMX219, or IMX477.)
- detected=0 means the camera is not detected. You might have to check the ribbon connection correctly, then reboot the Raspberry Pi.
First Use with Official Driver
You can refer to the page for instructions. Or refer to this page for the official commands.
1. Preview the camera feed in real time
Execute the official native command raspistill
raspistill -t 0
Press 【Ctrl】+【C】 to exit the preview.
Execute the official native command raspivid
raspivid -t 0
It can be zoomed into the display.
raspistill -t 0 -p 800,100,1024,768
raspivid -t 0 -p 800,100,1024,768
800,100 indicates the starting position of the window (top left corner).
1024,768 indicates the size of the image after scaling.
2. Save an image
Take a picture after a two-second (time in milliseconds) delay and save it as image.jpg.
raspistill -t 2000 -o image.jpg
Take a custom sized photo
raspistill -t 2000 -o image.jpg -w 1920 -h 1080
3. Save a video
Record 10 seconds (time in milliseconds) of h264 video and save it as video.h264.
raspivid -t 10000 -o video.h264
Double click “video.h264” file, it will call the VLC media player to play.
4. Advanced controls
The stereo camera HAT support channel selection and digital pan. It requires to write onboard ArduChip registers through the I2C bus on Raspberry Pi. So the user needs to active the I2C bus first(please refer to chapter 5.1 or the following methods).
Clone the GitHub repository from https://github.com/ArduCAM/MIPI_Camera.git and run the script ./enable_i2c_vc.sh, a reboot is required.
For more information about the ArduChip registers, please refer to chapter 7.
Before issuing any control command, you have to launch preview or video using raspistill or raspivid command first, then launch another terminal window to run the following commands.
4.1 Switch to CAM0, Single Mode
Run command i2cset -y 0 0x24 0x24 0x01 to switch from stereo mode to single mode CAM0 feed.
4.2 Switch to CAM1, Single Mode
Run command i2cset -y 0 0x24 0x24 0x02 to switch from stereo mode to single mode CAM1 feed.
4.3 Swtich back to Stereo Mode, Resized Full-Combine
Run command i2cset -y 0 0x24 0x24 0x00 to switch back to stereo mode.
First Use with MIPI Camera Driver
1.Download and Install the SDK
Download the SDK library:
git clone https://github.com/ArduCAM/MIPI_Camera.git
Enter the SDK directory:
cd MIPI_Camera/RPI/
Install SDK:
make install
Enable I2C_0:
chmod +x enable_i2c_vc.sh ./enable_i2c_vc.sh
Press 【y】, 【Enter】 to reboot Pi.
2.Compile demo
Enter the directory:
cd MIPI_Camera/RPI/
Compile demo:
make clean && make
1.It doesn’t matter if opencv reports an error
2.The demo program needs to be recompiled after modification.
3.Run demo (through the “arducamstill” command)
This is a comprehensive application, user can use it to preview, get images in a different format and fine tuning the image quality.
3.1 Get help
Execute the following command to get a description of the parameters of the arducamstill command.
Be sure to run it in the MIPI_Camera/RPI directory.
./arducamstill -?
3.2 Preview the camera feed in real time
Check the supported modes.
./list_format
You can only run the modes listed in the results. For example, you can only run mode1 or mode2 here.
Run mode0:
./arducamstill -t 0 -m 0
Run mode1:
./arducamstill -t 0 -m 1
The default display is windowed and scaled. If you need to change the window size, you have to do it in the demo program.
Difference between mode0 and mode1
1.The resolution of mode0 is 4056×3040, the resolution of mode1 is 8112×3040.
2.The frame rate of mode0 is higher than that of mode1.
3.Stretch the image of mode0 horizontally by a factor of twice and it will look exactly like the image of mode1!
3.3 Save an image
#mode0
Take a picture after a two-second (time in milliseconds) delay and save it as image.jpg.
./arducamstill -t 5000 -m 0 -o image.jpg
NOTE
This demo’s exposure and gain functions are controlled via the keyboard arrow keys, so the demo will always wait for keyboard commands.
Press 【Ctrl】+【C】 to exit preview.
The image is saved in the directory /home/pi/MIPI_Camera/PRI.
#mode1
Take a picture after a two-second (time in milliseconds) delay and save it as image.jpg.
./arducamstill -t 5000 -m 1 -o image.jpg
What’s Next
Here are the things you can do after this quick start:
- Check the Application Note for applications like using Arducam userland MIPI camera drivers.
- Join the discussion in our forum.
FAQ
Would it be possible to have it with 20-28mm focal length lenses instead of the standard 6mm?
You can change the default standard 6mm CS lens with your own lens.
What’s the difference between the kit’s camera (B0265R) and the standard camera (B0240)?
The kit’s camera (B0265R) can only be used with the HAT. You can not directly connect the camera to your Pi. But you can directly connect the standard camera (B0240) to Pi.
Will it be possible (maybe in the future) to replace the 12Mpx HQ camera with a higher resolution one (eg the B0164 AR1820HS 18Mpx or other)?
We will consider the market demand, and for now, a higher resolution stereo camera can only be ordered on a customized basis.
